President Donald Trump and his team, in a flurry of social media activity Saturday, posted behind-the-scenes photos and videos depicting the morning’s successful military operation to capture and remove Venezuelan socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro.
The president’s account kicked off the Truth Social posting spree late Saturday morning, with a minute-and-a-half video of the operation — set to Creedence Clearwater Revival’s 1969 protest song, “Fortunate Son” — showing bombs reportedly dropped by the Army’s Delta Force illuminating the dark Caracas sky. Trump then followed with images which was more sensitive. Ten minutes later, with a photo of the captured Maduro on board the USS Iwo Jima, a U.S. Navy amphibious assault ship, dressed in sweats and clenching a bottle of water.
Nicolas Maduro on board the USS Iwo Jima. pic.twitter.com/omF2UpDJhA
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 3, 2026
Throughout Saturday afternoon, Trump or his staff posted to his preferred (and owned) social media platform a series of 17 photos of him and key members of his administration in a situation room set up at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. Officials prominently featured in the series of pictures posted to Truth Social include Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Director of Central Intelligence John Ratcliffe, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan “Raizin” Caine.
One situation room-type photo shows Trump, Rubio, Ratcliffe, and Hegseth around a table with a large screen in the background focusing.
Just before 3:00 p.m. Eastern, the Trump account posted another video to Truth Social. The 40-second clip starts with an excerpt of a 2024 speech delivered by Maduro during which he appears to taunt Trump in Spanish, “Come for me, I’m waiting for you here in Miraflores. Don’t take too long to arrive, coward.” Miraflores Palace in Caracas is similar to the White House in that it is the location of both the official residence and office of the Venezuelan president.
The clip abruptly switches to a perched bald eagle followed by bombs again lighting up the sky of Venezuela’s capital — with AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” playing in the background — appearing to illustrate Trump’s response to the now-deposed dictator’s threats.
In addition to the presidential account’s posts to Truth Social, Trump’s team also remained active on X in the immediate aftermath of the operation. The Trump War Room account posted a cartoon of the president standing on a map of the Western Hemisphere with one foot on Alaska and the other on South America. The cartoon shows Trump wielding what appears to be a baseball bat with the words “Donroe Doctrine” written on it.
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) January 3, 2026
Should the U.S. military operations in Venezuela continue after Maduro's removal?
Trump coined the term, a pun on the Monroe Doctrine, a position first articulated by former President James Monroe in 1823 which asserted to foreign powers the Western Hemisphere was explicitly a sphere of U.S. influence.
“Under the now deposed dictator Maduro, Venezuela was increasingly hosting foreign adversaries in our region and acquiring menacing offensive weapons that could threaten U.S. interest in lives. And they used those weapons last night. … potentially in league with the cartels operating along our border,” Trump said during the press conference.
“All of these actions were in gross violation of the core principles of American foreign policy dating back more than two centuries, and not anymore. All the way back, it dated to the Monroe Doctrine, and the Monroe Doctrine is a big deal, but we’ve superseded it by a lot, by a real lot. They now call it the Donroe Doctrine,” Trump added.
Maduro was widely believed to have been allied with major adversaries of the United States, including Russia, China, and Iran. The indictment against him, his wife, his son, and two of his political allies unsealed Saturday alleged he collaborated with multiple, communist groups, crime syndicates, and foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) to traffic cocaine to the U.S.
“President Trump is a decisive and strong leader who does EXACTLY what he says he’s going to do. During his historic campaign in 2024, President Trump explicitly promised that he would work to ‘demolish foreign drug cartels’ to keep our citizens safe and that’s exactly what he did today through an unprecedented display of speed, precision, and power,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote in a Saturday afternoon X post.
President Trump is a decisive and strong leader who does EXACTLY what he says he’s going to do.
During his historic campaign in 2024, President Trump explicitly promised that he would work to “demolish foreign drug cartels” to keep our citizens safe and that’s exactly what he… pic.twitter.com/2oz4rEwLfn
— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) January 3, 2026
“As the Administration has been saying for months, Nicolás Maduro was not the legitimate President of Venezuela – he was the fugitive head of a narco-terrorist cartel who flooded the United States of America with deadly drugs and sent thousands of vicious illegal alien thugs to destabilize our country and harm its people,” Leavitt’s post continues. “That’s why Maduro was indicted in the United States and finally captured early this morning where he will face the full weight of the American justice system.”
The White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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